Oh Nooo. Lou Reed - RIP

by Salman Hameed

Well this sucks.

Here is Lou flying into the Sun:



An excerpt from Fly into the Sun:

The earth is weeping, the sky is shaking
the stars split to their core
And every proton and unnamed neutron
is fusing in my bones

And an unnamed mammal is darkly rising
as man burns from his tomb
And I look at this as a blissful moment
to fly into the sun

Fly into the sun
fly into the sun
I'd burn up into a million pieces
and fly into the sun

To end this mystery
answer my mystery
I'd look at this as a wondrous moment
to end this mystery

Fly into the sun
fly into the sun
I'd break up into a million pieces
and fly into the sun
----

And here are couple of great songs (from many many others) for a taste and a reminder:



from his Velvet Underground days:



And how can we not end with A Walk on the Wild Side:

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Page and Plant getting the Led out in Marrakesh

by Salman Hameed

Actually, this was part of their 1994 Unledded tour - so technically, there was no Led there (John Paul Jones was not part of this). So no Led Zeppelin, but this is still amazing (and by the way, there is 'no' reunion of Led Zeppelin on the way). From Open Culture:

The resulting album and DVD feature an assortment of Zeppelin songs that were reinterpreted with the help of an Egyptian ensemble, an Indian vocalist and the London Metropolitan Orchestra, but perhaps the most interesting part of the project was a trio of new songs recorded with local musicians in Marrakesh, Morocco. Those performances, shown here, were the result of a collaboration with traditional musicians of the Gnawa minority, whose sub-Saharan ancestors were brought to Morocco many centuries ago as slaves. 

“We’d never met the Gnawa when we went there,” said Plant in a 1994 interview, “but they were very patient, and smiling is a great currency.” Gnawa music is traditionally performed for prayer and healing, and differs from other North African music. “They play a kind of music which is much more akin to the music of the Mississippi Delta than it is to do with Arab music,” Plant said in another interview. “It’s haunting, seductive, and quite alluring.”

Here are two of the three songs:

City Don't Cry - Wah Wah:


And here is The Truth Explodes:


Oh and just a bonus from the early Led Zeppelin days. Here is a 1973 live performance of Since I've been Loving You:

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Geopolitics and Olympic medals

by Salman Hameed

The olympics section of the New York Times has a sliding bar that shows countries with medals since the start of modern olympics in 1896. Of course, the number of countries (and the number of countries that participate) has increased over the past century. But what is cool about the sliding bar is that it gives you a bit of a taste of the state of geopolitics at the larger level.

For example, here is the result from the 1936 Berlin olympics - a few years before the start of World War II. We can already see some of the key players in the war:

Here are the medals from the 1988 Seoul olympics. We see a bi-polar world - especially if you also include East-Germany in the communist block. But that was all about to change.

And this from the 2008 Beijing olympics - and we can see the rise of a new power from the east:

Nothing very profound here. I was just having fun with the time-line, and you can checkout the sliding bar yourself. 

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Checking out Wilco at Mass MoCA

by Salman Hameed

One of my summer pleasures for the past decade has been attending a live performance of the band Wilco. Their music is creative and always evolving into new directions. Plus, they put on amazing live shows. In fact, it is the live performances where you really get a chance to see the production of their sound. I'm planning on seeing them at Mass MoCA tomorrow night (it is a benefit concert for Mass MoCA). In preparation for that, here are a couple of Wilco songs from the last few years:

Theologians (from 2004) - but this is the closest I could get to topic related to science and religion:



And yes, indeed the theologians don't come off too well in the song:

Theologians 

That don't know nothing 

About my soul 

Oh they don't know 

They thin my heart with little things 

And my life with change 

Oh in so many ways 

I find more missing every day 

Just for its music, here is Impossible Germany from a few years ago. It features an outstanding solo by jazz guitarist, Nels Cline:



And here is the kick-ass opening track, The Art of Possible, from the current album, The Whole Love:

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Off-topic: A nudge for "The Artist"

by Salman Hameed

I know some people are hesitant to go and see a black & white, silent film in the 21st century. But really you should go and see The Artist. It is not only an homage to early cinema, but it also has a wonderfully crafted story as well as a great soundtrack to go with it.

Here is our film autopsy (review) of The Artist:

And while we are on the subject of movies, here is our film autopsy of the spy thriller, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy:

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A bit of Qawwali for the new year...

by Salman Hameed

Courtesy of the fantastic Coke Studio series from Pakistan, here is a 16-minute Qawwali from Fareed Ayaz and Abu Muhammad called Kangna. Absolutely spectacular!

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Off-Topic: Local humor about our video store

by Salman Hameed

Northampton, MA had a phenomenal video store, Pleasant Street Video. This was one of those places where the staff itself had seen all the films and had strong opinions about them. This was definitely not a place to find Michael Bay films. It reminded me a bit of the record store in High Fidelity. In the age of Netflix and streaming, it stayed competitive for a while and at least outlived Blockbuster. Finally, it closed down this past summer. I understand that the time for such video stores is gone. Nevertheless, it was a gem of a store and we'll all miss it.

So here is an appropriate and really funny tribute to it (tip from Chris Perry). Of course, you will appreciate it all the more if you know some of the local references. Enjoy!

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Dylan at 70!

by Salman Hameed

It is hard to pick which songs to put here. It is even hard to pick what is a good representative sample. In any case, here is an excellent article in Slate on the ever-changing Bob Dylan: Busy Being Born. I really like his recent albums, especially Time Out of Mind and Modern Times, but I do love his older stuff as well. So here are four different videos, spanning the last 50 years (yes, the Dylan of 1980s is missing here). Enjoy!

Subterranean Homesick Blues (from Bringing it all back home - 1965)

Tangled up in Blue (from Blood on the Tracks - 1975)



Things have Changed (from the soundtrack of the fantastic movie, Wonder Boys - from 2000. Okay so I consider this almost 1990s. In any case, I will make it up towards the end)



And Thunder on the Mountain (from Modern Times - 2006)



And to make up for the 1990s, here is a portion of Dylan's Love Sick (from Time Out of Mind - 1997) for a Victoria's Secret commercial.

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Off-topic: More snow?

John Hale's Science & Religion lecture yesterday on the Mysteries of the Delphic Oracle was fascinating and absolutely riveting. His talk is perhaps one of the best advertisements for inter-disciplinary research: an archaeologist collaborates with a geologist and a toxicologist to uncover history associated with the Delphic oracle. And no - interdisciplinary work is no cake-walk. He talked about disagreements and tensions that inevitably result in working across disciplines. But - individually, none of them would have been able to figure out the full story. I will post the video of the talk in the next couple of weeks. I highly recommend watching the talk.

In the mean time, it is snowing again. Now, a snow storm in April in New England is not such an oddity. But this has been an especially brutal winter: bitterly cold and snowy. So seeing the ground white again is a bit disheartening. So who better to cheer us up than the weirdness of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (I absolutely love Murder Ballads and The Boatman's Call, and his screenplay and the soundtrack for the film The Proposition). So here is the video for Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow from No More Shall We Part:



Oh - and if you enjoy a bit of weirdness, you can also check out the video for Henry Lee by Nick Cave and PJ Harvey (a match made in heaven!) from his 1996 album Murder Ballads (yes, the lyrics are disturbing - but then what were you really expecting in these ballads?). 

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Pakistani satire site fools Fox News: "Islamic ban on padded bras"?

By Salman Hameed

Okay - this is hilarious and serves Fox News perfectly. They are so fixated on demonizing Muslims that they fell for an Onion-style Pakistani satire site, Roznama Jawani (tip from Zakir Thaver). From Salon:

Fox News website has picked up a hoax story about an Islamic council in Pakistan protesting the use of padded and colorful bras and presented it as fact.

The story, which is still featured on Fox News' Fox Nation website, was illustrated with a picture of a woman's mid-section and carried the headline "Pakistan: Islamic Clerics Protest Women Wearing Padded Bras as 'Devil’s Cushions.'" (UPDATE 9:30: Fox has now pulled the story. See the original here.) The lead of the Fox Nation story, which sources the piece to the Indian news website sify.com, reads:

The Council of Islamic Ideology in Pakistan has protested the use of padded and colourful bras by Muslim women, and recommended that Pakistani Muslim researchers should try to invent an innerwear that makes female assets unnoticeable.

The problem is, if one takes the time to track the story back to its source, the whole thing is an obvious Onion-style satire -- a fact first pointed out by Arif Rafiq of the Pakistan Policy Blog.

The sify.com story linked by Fox cites a "report" from yet another site called Roznama Jawani.

Roznama Jawani, in turn, appears to be a Pakistani version of the Onion, featuring such stories as "Karachi Preparing a Huge Ass Bat to Beat the Shit Out of Kamran Akmal," "Altaf Hussain Challenges Imran Khan to a Rap Battle to Settle Differences," and "Man From Peshawar Sues Red Bull. Says he has no wings!"

The bra story on Roznama Jawani features a crudely photoshopped image of an Islamic council meeting with a large sign that says, "Future of Padded Bras." The story quotes an anti-padded bra protester saying that "Padded bras are evil as they make the breasts look bigger and perky ... Only devil women show off private parts."

Read the full story on Salon here, read the original story on Roznama Jawani here: "Padded Bras are Devil's Cushions" says Council of Islamic Ideology. By the way, Roznama Jawani are claiming that they are now "Fox News' authentic news source".

[P.S. Some Saudi fatwas are indeed beyond parody: For example this one where Saudi clerics advocate adult breast feeding. Fantastically, this fatwa was also used by women in their bid to get driving rights: Women threaten to breastfeed drivers if they aren't allowed to drive. Brilliant - and this serves these clerics right]. 

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Hobbit Racism?

Okay - so the issue is serious. But the fact that it is related to Hobbits, makes it amusing as well. Can there be brown-skinned Hobbits? May be not. From Dawn:

Peter Jackson’s troubled “The Hobbit” project was embroiled in a race row Monday over a casting agent sacked for telling a would-be extra she was too dark to play one of the pint-sized creatures.

The independent contractor who made the comments and placed an advertisement in a local newspaper specifying female hobbit extras “should have light skin tones” had been dismissed, a spokesman for Jackson’s Wingnut Films said.

“No such instructions were given, the crew member in question took it upon themselves to do that and it’s not something we instructed or condoned,” he told AFP.

The row erupted after Briton Naz Humphreys, who has Pakistani heritage, attended a casting session in the New Zealand city of Hamilton last week, queuing for three hours only to be told her skin tone was not suitable.

“It’s 2010 and I still can’t believe I’m being discriminated against because I have brown skin,” Humphreys told the Waikato Times newspaper.

And now Naz has started a Facebook group called, "Hire hobbits of all colours! Say no to hobbit racism!” Okay this may be a smart move.

And here are some other details of the incident:

The Waikato Times said video footage showed the casting agent telling people at the audition: “We are looking for light-skinned people. I’m not trying to be — whatever. It’s just the brief. You’ve got to look like a hobbit.” The agent also placed a classified advertisement in the Bay of Plenty Times listing essential requirements for potential hobbits, including age, 16-80, and height — below 170 cm (5 foot 7 inches) for men and 158cm (5ft 2in) for women. The additional demand for light skin tones applied only to women.

The casting agent has now been fired. Read the full story here.

And while we are on the topic of movies, here is the way Star Trek should have really ended:


I actually did have a problem with the new Star Trek movie - it had no sense of exploration or wonder in it, along with an awful ending - and so I actually prefer this alternate end to the film. Enjoy!

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Restrepo: An unflinching look at the Afghan war

I had a chance to see the documentary Restrepo today. It is about the current war in Afghanistan and it follows one US Battle Company for 15 months - from its deployment in 2007 to its leave - in the Korangal Valley in eastern Afghanistan. Is it great film-making? Probably not. However, this provides a unflinching look at the Afghan war (and the war, in general) and I really liked it. It is made by war photographer Tim Hetherington and author Sebastian Junger - who followed the Company for 15-months. There are many fire-fights in the film, as this Company came under fire almost daily. But these fire-fights are real and not staged or acted. It is an haunting film. There is no real narrative arc (apart from the 15-month duty of the Company) nor is there a voice-over from the director. Instead, you only get to hear the voices of the soldiers.

There are many ways to talk about the film. But I will make only couple of points here: It is interesting that we (and the US soldiers) never see the enemy fighters. They do shoot at the targets, but apart from one instance, they don't see the individual they are shooting at. This is perhaps the nature of the modern war that even when you are face-to-face, you can't see the face of the enemy.

For me the most fascinating part of the film was the meeting of US soldiers with the local Shura of the elders. The elders were all very old - and the US soldiers were all very young. In fact, there is a whole lifetime written on the faces of the elders. Most elders had long beards, red with henna, and many of them with only a few teeth left in their mouths. These shura sessions in the film highlight the communication gap between the US troops and the local Afghans - and one of the reasons why the war has been going the way it has been going.

If you are interested in understanding the Afghan war (not necessarily the politics behind it), or if you want to see the impact of such conflicts on individuals, or if you want to have some idea of the tough terrain at the Afghan-Pakistan border, then check out Restrepo.

Here is the trailer of the film:

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Off-topic: A smart New Yorker piece on Pakistan

Steven Coll has a nuanced short piece on Pakistan in this week's New Yorker. Basic message: Pakistan and the Pakistani situation is complex, but focus on the economy. And for economy, Pakistan-India relations have to be improved, which are tied to resolving the Kashmir dispute. But he starts with the public opinion in Pakistan:

Last spring, according to a Pew Research Center poll, eighty-four per cent of Pakistanis were dissatisfied with the way things were going in their country. Inflation, terrorist bombings, and American drone strikes were among the causes of their discontent. Three-quarters disapproved of the job being done by the country’s President, Asif Ali Zardari.

Then came the summer’s monsoon rains, which engorged the Indus River water system, causing floods that by last week had killed almost two thousand people, left seven million homeless, and ruined 1.4 million acres of cropland.

And here is the complexity that is often gets ignored: 

After a decade in which the United States and Pakistan have been lashed together by war and terrorism, it is understandably hard for many Americans to conceive of Pakistan as a whole place. It’s not only a country that is poorly governed and menaced by Islamist radicals; it’s also one that is growing economically, and that houses a raucously open society populated by muckraking journalists, comic novelists, cheesy reality-TV producers, real-estate hustlers, world-class squash players, and the like. The number of Pakistanis living in poverty fell by almost half between 1999 and 2008, from thirty per cent of the population to about seventeen per cent. This extraordinary change, a result of rapid economic growth and remittances from Pakistanis working abroad, is not often discussed on American cable-news outlets. Five years ago, Pakistan’s economic growth rate reached eight per cent annually, and the economy has continued to expand, if more slowly, even since 2008, when the global financial crisis and the domestic Taliban insurgency took hold simultaneously. (The number of Pakistanis living in poverty almost certainly has crept up again, and will move higher still because of the floods.)

Islamist insurgents threaten Pakistan’s weak government, yet they remain widely unpopular. In the last election, the religious party previously aligned with the Taliban polled two per cent; in the country’s history, religious parties have never won more than twelve per cent in a national election.

But this is where economic ties with India come in, and he uses Indonesia as an interesting example to emulate: 

Pakistan’s economic expansion has come, in part, by selling and smuggling consumer goods to India’s growing middle classes. For Pakistan to overcome its many burdens, it must make peace, or, at least, normalize economic ties, with India, which would include resolving the Kashmir dispute. On this subject, the United States could benefit from a sense of urgency comparable to its focus on Pakistani terrorism. In 2007, the governments of India and Pakistan negotiated the outline of an agreement that would have further opened their border to trade. A final deal has proved elusive, in part because of evidence that Pakistan’s Army continues to support anti-Indian terrorist groups; the Obama Administration has the leverage in Pakistan to hold the Army accountable.

Economic growth is not a panacea for social ills or political disarray, but policies designed to unleash Pakistan’s economy during the next decade are far more likely to reduce the threat of Taliban-inspired revolution than are military operations and drone strikes. Examples of success exist: Indonesia, which, like Pakistan, has a large Muslim population and implausible borders left behind by imperialists, suffered badly a decade ago from separatist violence, Al Qaeda-linked Islamist terrorists, and poisonous civil-military relations. By riding Southeast Asia’s economic boom, Indonesia has become a comparably bland, democratic archipelago.

... 

The agricultural market towns in the flood zone—Ghotki, Jacobabad, Shahdadkot—are not notable breeding grounds for international terrorism. They are home instead to the marginal lives of another Pakistan, one poised for many years between aspiration and collapse—that of landless laborers, tenant farmers, bus drivers, and shopkeepers. These Pakistanis belong to no war party and live in peaceful indifference to the United States. To help reimagine their future, and that of their country, the place to begin is to come unconditionally to their aid.

I think it would be very smart to tie Pakistan's economy to India's rapidly growing economy. This will be good for the region and good for Pakistan (and India). Can there be a real substantial move in this direction? I hope so - though it is hard to see such a step from the existing leaders in Pakistan (and in India as well). But then floods, as destructive as they are, were often seen in ancient mythologies as new beginnings. May be. Read the full article here. Also see this post on how to help flood victims in Pakistan. 

Also here is a song for flood victims by the Pakistani band Laal. By the way, this band is known for its lefty-activist political songs - especially using lyrics of the late poets Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Habib Jalib. Again, how many people outside of Pakistan expected the existence of such a band - and a band that has had considerable mainstream success.

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This is so off-topic - and yet somehow related...

So finally an excuse to put cat-pictures on the blog (tip from Laura for these Cat-Tastic fashions). Now I had just posted about the fantastic science section at Kinokuniya bookstore in Kuala Lumpur. Well, well. It seems this cat is also all dressed up for Kinokuniya - though probably in Tokyo):

Hey - c'mon. This is related to the previous post :) . And just for the heck of it, here is a bonus pic:

Now, I hope my cat - Billy the Kit (yes, he is from New Mexico) - also reads this post and learns a bit about fashion. Forget about dressing up, he makes it harder for me to even blog:

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Video for "The Curse"

I posted about Josh Ritter's The Curse a little too soon. Now there is a fantastic video that accompanies it. It is directed, produced and puppeteered by Ritter's drummer, Liam Hurley. An excellent choice of visuals here.

Enjoy!

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A love affair between an archaeologist and a mummy

Here is a fantastic song by Josh Ritter about a love affair between an archaeologist and a mummy. It is called The Curse, and it is simply gorgeous. This is from his new album, So Runs the World Away. Here are the lyrics to The Curse and here is the song:

I have seen Josh Ritter live couple of times and he is fantastic. I was introduced to him music via Kathleen from his first album. Do check out Kathleen.

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Geek Sunday with Star Trek

This is the end of the semester - so you have to excuse me for this.

It is not entirely my fault, but while clearing up my Google Reader, I ran into two Star Trek related posts - one at Bad Astronomy and the other at 3quarksdaily. These are not really related to the blog - but then how could I resist William Shatner singing Rocket Man. As far as the conversation between Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis is concerned, I've always had a soft spot for ST-TNG. I was at Stony Brook for undergraduate when it was being aired, and I remember going to the student union every Sunday night to watch it with a bunch of other Trekkies (hey - what did you expect? I was an astronomy and physics major). Oh - I can make it even geekier. I admit it - I saw Marina Sirtis speak at one of the big science fiction conventions (ICON) at Stony Brook in the early 1990s (ST-TNG was still running) - and yes, she was great answering questions in front of over 600-700 doting Trekkies jammed into a lecture hall.

FYI: Apart from the Borg episodes, Yesterday's Enterprise, Ship in a Bottle, and All Good Things were some of the best TNG episodes :)

So, first here is William Shatner singing(?) Rocket Man:

And here is a chat from 2008 between Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis (this is actually funny):

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Off-topic: Khomeini - a poet?

Just last week I was having a discussion with a friend about Ghalib and the influence of Persian poetry. So it was amusing to read an article yesterday that mentioned a poem by Ayatollah Khomeini (yes, the original Ayatollah). In fact, the tenor of Khomeini's poem is not that different from what Ghalib had been writing in the 19th century. The article talks about couple of his other writings, but then here is the bit about his poem (tip from 3quarksdaily):

Finally, my desperate quest for more Khomeini led me to this singular, solitary poem, originally published in the New Republic in 1989, just as the Ayatollah was demanding death for Rushdie and poised to take the great leap into eternity himself. This was what I was really interested in – something that would reveal a side of Khomeini unknown to those of us in the west; a more tender aspect of the bearded, reactionary theocrat.

And what a poem! If the first two lines are startling:

I have become imprisoned, O beloved, by the mole on your lip!
I saw your ailing eyes and became ill through love.

Then what follows a few lines down is absolutely amazing:

Open the door of the tavern and let us go there day and night,
For I am sick and tired of the mosque and seminary.

The whole thing ends with a repudiation of Islam in favour of the "tavern's idol".

Even allowing for the fact that the Ayatollah is utilising a poetic persona, the poem is remarkable: free thinking, even heretical. And yet … according to Khomeini's Arabic translator, professor Muhammad Ala al-Din Mansur, of Cairo University, the apparently secular tone is misleading:

Imam Khomeini's poetry was exclusively a means for the manifestation of his mystical and numinous thoughts while praying to God and reflecting on the mysteries of the creation.

And sure enough, I soon found an essay online in which the critic revealed that everything in the poem is something else, and nothing is what it appears to be. Bummer.

I don't know. I won't be too quick to jump on an alternative interpretation. It is the ambiguity that often gives poetry its power. Read the full article here.

In any case, here is the full poem as published in NYT in 1989:

I have become imprisoned, O beloved, by the mole on your lip!
I saw your ailing eyes and became ill through love.
Delivered from self, I beat the drum of ''I am the Real!''
Like Hallaj, I became a customer for the top of the gallows.
Heartache for the beloved has thrown so many sparks into my soul
That I have been driven to despair and become the talk of the bazaar!
Open the door of the tavern and let us go there day and night,
For I am sick and tired of the mosque and seminary.
I have torn off the garb of asceticism and hypocrisy,
Putting on the cloak of the tavern-haunting shaykh and becoming aware.
The city preacher has so tormented me with his advice
That I have sought aid from the breath of the wine-drenched profligate.
Leave me alone to remember the idol-temple,
I who have been awakened by the hand of the tavern's idol.

(see here for more info on the Hallaj reference in the 4th line)

May be Khomeini and Ghalib would have had much to talk about (on life and poetry - but not on politics). Here is one of Ghalib's couplets:

ye masaail-e-tasawwuf, ye tera bayaan 'Ghalib'!
this mysticism, these statements of yours Ghalib
tujhe ham walee samajhate, jo na baada_khwaar hota
you would be a saint, if only you were not inebriated

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Off topic: A Punjabi Jingle Bell

Off topic, yes. But perfect for Christmas (especially watching it from here in Pakistan). Enjoy! (tip 3quarksdaily)

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Off topic: Picasso's Guernica in 3D

Here is another interesting experiment with a famous painting. Some may find these type of experiments as a desecration of art - but I think they enhance the original and also give us, the art illiterates, a valuable lesson in understanding great art. Check out an earlier related posts on Peter Greenaway's phenomenal exhibit on The Wedding at Cana and also about an online comparison between Caravaggio and Rembrandt. By the way, Guernica is also on Peter Greenaway's list. Can't wait to see that. In the mean time, here is Picasso's Guernica in 3D (tip from 3quarksdaily):

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