...parce qu'en général l'enfant comme l'homme, et l'homme comme l'enfant aime mieux s'amuser que s'instruire -- Diderot (Le neveu de Rameau, c. 1761)
Friday, November 23, 2007
Where do turkeys come from?
As for Thanksgiving itself, it has developed an identity crisis of its own, in true American style: is it a religious festival or not?
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Nicht löschbares Feuer (inextinguishable fire)
Here's a link to watch it online, if you're curious about who created horrible weapons of mass destruction.
Here's a link to an interview with Farocki, in which he responds to questions about Jill Godmilow's remake of his film.
And here's another interview with Farocki and Godmilow.
What's wrong with American academia
Like corporations and families, universities can be pretty sick places. Not that everything is wrong, but I often think we're in the twilight of US academia. Perhaps the future will belong to the best universities and institutes of Australia, Canada, Europe, and elsewhere.
I'm just starting off a list here. Will add future posts as more reasons occur to me.
- Quality teaching is a low priority
- Discrimination and intolerance
- Corruption
- Market-driven education (related to the tenure issue, in the first link)
- Fear of foreigners
Friday, November 16, 2007
Haunted by Bhul Bhulaiya
absolutely no getting away from this damn song in Mumbai. It played at least a million times at Ra the one evening I was there, and it's on every FM station. I don't have a radio, but I hear it in cabs, autorickshaws, and the company cars that drop us home at night. The other day I was on the 1 Ltd. bus late at night, and there was a dude three seats behind me, playing it on his damn FM cellphone. Bet he thought he was doing a good deed by sharing it with the whole damn bus.
So... here it is. I'm no connoisseur, but I think it's a pretty poorly directed video, so don't be disappointed. The sound and image quality isn't so great either -- someone's pirating skills are obviously not up to scratch :) (the film is in the theaters still).
Update from the future: The above video has been removed due to some violation or other (What? Copyright violations on the internet?? Who'da thunk it!!), so here's a link to a fresh one, if you're reeeeeally interested.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Indian Chinesisms
Oh Ya - soya sauce brand (the manufacturer is Sil / Marico)
Ya Hoo - Chinese takeaway near Khar Subway
Ching Ki Shak - Chinese restaurant or takeaway, can't remember location
All of the above were seen around Mumbai.
For the record, I don't think Indian Chinese food is fakery in the sense of trying to pass off something as what it's not; it's just a creative adaptation to a different cultural context, like, er... like Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet :P
Americanisms that are just plain wrong English
Photo source: http://www.goodexperience.com/broken/images/337889974_fdd029b0f2.jpg
These are things I've heard even educated people say, not just redneckspeak:
- "Catch up to", instead of catch up with
- "Waiting on", instead of waiting for. You wait on someone when you fetch them food, beverages, and dessert.
- "Hat", even for a baseball cap
- "Cup", even for a whacking great 16 oz mug
- "That" instead of "who" -- people "that" use bad grammar really "tick me off"
- "Tick someone off" for when you piss them off. In English English, you "tick someone off" by giving them a piece of your mind, putting them in their place, that sort of thing.
- "Off of", as in "I copied this off of the innernet", when you really just copied it off the internet.
- "Innernet", "twenny" and all those other slurs. The lives of millions of T's in the middle of words are in vain in America. They either get substituted by a slurry "d" sound, or vanish altogether. And the poor "d" in "wonderful" has no hope at all -- it is its fate to vanish.
- "Transportation". Syllables added for no reason. "Transport" works just fine.
- "Preventative". Another useless syllable. Should we prevent disaster, or preventate it?
- "Good on you" instead of good for you, when you express approval or appreciation of someone's actions.
- Dropping "to be", e.g. "My car needs fixed". I've known educated people to write like this. Seems to be a Pennsylvania thing, or maybe Ohio as well.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
America, America, American War Paar Da
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Really special
You can also hear "Yellow Moon" at the Neville Brothers' website, but personally I prefer the live version on YouTube, linked above.