D 'oh, I love anagrams!!!
thiS dumb maniac
this dUmb maniac
this duMb maniac
this dumb mAniac
this dumb maNiac
This dumb maniac
tHis dumb maniac
this dumb maniaC
thIs dumb maniac
this Dumb maniac
this dumb maniAc
this dumb Maniac
this dumB maniac
this dumb manIac
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Reverse Migration a.k.a Back to Desh
Ok, a really quick note on a few things - First, the long hiatus on the blog, I seemed to have developed writer's block and that's just been cured. Secondly, on my life in general - I've moved back to India recently into a new sector as well, I now work for a mining and metals corporation.
Why did I return to India? Well to paraphrase a skull, "Quit while you are a head, that's what I say" and that seemed as good a reason as any to me to change lanes. . .
Most important pieces of learning in the new job (a) IBM now stands for Indian Bureau of Mines and not International Business Machines, and (b) CSR now means Corporate Social Responsibility and not Customer Service Representative...
Life has been quite hectic these last 2-3 months what with the move from overseas et al but hey in the words of FZ, "whatever you have to do to have a good time, let's get on with it, so long as it doesn't cause a murder."
More to follow regularly (I hope...)
Peace
S
Why did I return to India? Well to paraphrase a skull, "Quit while you are a head, that's what I say" and that seemed as good a reason as any to me to change lanes. . .
Most important pieces of learning in the new job (a) IBM now stands for Indian Bureau of Mines and not International Business Machines, and (b) CSR now means Corporate Social Responsibility and not Customer Service Representative...
Life has been quite hectic these last 2-3 months what with the move from overseas et al but hey in the words of FZ, "whatever you have to do to have a good time, let's get on with it, so long as it doesn't cause a murder."
More to follow regularly (I hope...)
Peace
S
Friday, June 17, 2005
An Evening At The Rochester International Jazz Festival a.k.a Brubeck In Concert
In case you did not immediately recognize the pictorial glyph above, that was the introductory liner note for Take 5, unarguably Dave Brubeck Quartet’s most famous and signature jazz tune, written by Mr. Brubeck’s long time musical cohort and alto saxophonist Paul Desmond. Nandita and I went to a couple of jazz concerts this week, part of the annual Rochester International Jazz festival that featured amongst others Sonny Rollins, Chaka Khan and Chick Corea (who we saw perform Tuesday with his current band, Touchstone).
Last night, we attended a headliner performance by The Dave Brubeck Quartet at the Eastman Theater that started 8.00 PM sharp with Mr. Brubeck taking centre stage and accompanied by alto saxophonist Bobby Militello, bassist Michael Moore and drummer Randy Jones. Mr. Brubeck, all of 85-years, belied all signs of frailty as he started playing to a standing ovation.
Dave Brubeck has deservedly earned the respect of many of his peers including the legendary Miles Davis and Charles Mingus for his unique piano style and songwriting abilities. Sadly, for the better part of his career, the elitist jazz snobs were less kind about his style and music. I personally think they resented the fact that he successfully took jazz from the night clubs to the college campuses as well as adopted an avant garde structure in most of his compositions. Singularly credited with establishing a number of jazz standards, including “In Your Own Sweet Way” and “The Duke”, his music makes use of unusual time signatures (a time signature is a notational device used in western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each bar and which note value i.e. minim, crotchet, quaver, etc constitutes one beat). Another signature tune, Blue Rondo A La Turk, which is a play on Mozart’s “Rondo alla Turca”, is written in the 9/8 signature of traditional Turkish music, the country the Quartet was touring in when the tune was written. Brubeck was featured on the cover of Time magazine in 1954, the first jazz musician to be so honored.
Post that quick infomercial on Brubeck, let me return to the concert itself. The Quartet performed several pieces including Pennies From Heaven and a new release called London Flat London Sharp. Only, this time round, all performances were quite unlike any studio version of these tunes, more of the long slow outtakes type. All 4 players simply “experimented” with their instruments. I was blown away by Bobby Militello’s virtuosity with the saxaphone as well as Randy Jones dexterity on the drums – some of the rolls performed were simply too-three-fifty much. Mr. Brubeck punctuated the music with anecdotal references on the history of the tunes themselves. Interestingly, London Flat London Sharp was a tune written on their recent tour of England. The producer/agent who wanted Brubeck to tour and play in what was presumably archetypal beastly English weather apparently told Brubeck that for the Quartet’s troubles they would be put up in a flat in London, to which Brubeck’s response was “Sharp” (errr… for my friends this side of the Atlantic and not quite familiar, “flat” means “apartment” and “sharp” means “cool”).
Last tune for the evening was Take 5, only I’d like to call it the Take 5 Slow Jam. Post the introductory notes, each member of the Quartet played solo the tune itself before coming back together for a grand finale of this timeless classic – all in all, a good 15-17 drawn out minutes of incredible music. Folks, if you have never heard Dave Brubeck or his music ever before, just do yourself a small favor and hear this one tune… It will do you a world of good!!!
Mr. Brubeck finished the evening with another interesting anecdote. Rayburn Wright, one-time director of the Eastman Jazz Ensemble in Rochester encouraged Brubeck to write a tune for orchestra, something he hadn’t done before. Brubeck gave it a try and unenthusiastically sent the first piece of his composition to Wright. Wright replied that he did not want to touch or alter any of the score and had Brubeck finish the entire composition single-handedly. That composition for orchestra called Elementals was performed for the first time ever at the Eastman Theater in 1963 by a 45 member orchestra directed by Wright. Nice!!!
Ok, I need to run now. Next up, is John Scofield, performing on Saturday. He mixes bebop, R&B and blues seamlessly with jazz… I’ve heard him before on a couple of collaborative works with none other than Miles Davis… Will keep y’all posted…
Peace
S
Last night, we attended a headliner performance by The Dave Brubeck Quartet at the Eastman Theater that started 8.00 PM sharp with Mr. Brubeck taking centre stage and accompanied by alto saxophonist Bobby Militello, bassist Michael Moore and drummer Randy Jones. Mr. Brubeck, all of 85-years, belied all signs of frailty as he started playing to a standing ovation.
Dave Brubeck has deservedly earned the respect of many of his peers including the legendary Miles Davis and Charles Mingus for his unique piano style and songwriting abilities. Sadly, for the better part of his career, the elitist jazz snobs were less kind about his style and music. I personally think they resented the fact that he successfully took jazz from the night clubs to the college campuses as well as adopted an avant garde structure in most of his compositions. Singularly credited with establishing a number of jazz standards, including “In Your Own Sweet Way” and “The Duke”, his music makes use of unusual time signatures (a time signature is a notational device used in western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each bar and which note value i.e. minim, crotchet, quaver, etc constitutes one beat). Another signature tune, Blue Rondo A La Turk, which is a play on Mozart’s “Rondo alla Turca”, is written in the 9/8 signature of traditional Turkish music, the country the Quartet was touring in when the tune was written. Brubeck was featured on the cover of Time magazine in 1954, the first jazz musician to be so honored.
Post that quick infomercial on Brubeck, let me return to the concert itself. The Quartet performed several pieces including Pennies From Heaven and a new release called London Flat London Sharp. Only, this time round, all performances were quite unlike any studio version of these tunes, more of the long slow outtakes type. All 4 players simply “experimented” with their instruments. I was blown away by Bobby Militello’s virtuosity with the saxaphone as well as Randy Jones dexterity on the drums – some of the rolls performed were simply too-three-fifty much. Mr. Brubeck punctuated the music with anecdotal references on the history of the tunes themselves. Interestingly, London Flat London Sharp was a tune written on their recent tour of England. The producer/agent who wanted Brubeck to tour and play in what was presumably archetypal beastly English weather apparently told Brubeck that for the Quartet’s troubles they would be put up in a flat in London, to which Brubeck’s response was “Sharp” (errr… for my friends this side of the Atlantic and not quite familiar, “flat” means “apartment” and “sharp” means “cool”).
Last tune for the evening was Take 5, only I’d like to call it the Take 5 Slow Jam. Post the introductory notes, each member of the Quartet played solo the tune itself before coming back together for a grand finale of this timeless classic – all in all, a good 15-17 drawn out minutes of incredible music. Folks, if you have never heard Dave Brubeck or his music ever before, just do yourself a small favor and hear this one tune… It will do you a world of good!!!
Mr. Brubeck finished the evening with another interesting anecdote. Rayburn Wright, one-time director of the Eastman Jazz Ensemble in Rochester encouraged Brubeck to write a tune for orchestra, something he hadn’t done before. Brubeck gave it a try and unenthusiastically sent the first piece of his composition to Wright. Wright replied that he did not want to touch or alter any of the score and had Brubeck finish the entire composition single-handedly. That composition for orchestra called Elementals was performed for the first time ever at the Eastman Theater in 1963 by a 45 member orchestra directed by Wright. Nice!!!
Ok, I need to run now. Next up, is John Scofield, performing on Saturday. He mixes bebop, R&B and blues seamlessly with jazz… I’ve heard him before on a couple of collaborative works with none other than Miles Davis… Will keep y’all posted…
Peace
S
Monday, June 13, 2005
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Retribution (in) 2005 a.k.a. The Priest Is Back!!!
“Fast and furious we ride the universe
To carve a road for us that slices every curve in sight
We accelerate, no time to hesitate
This load will detonate whoever would contend its right
Born to lead at breakneck speed
With high octane we're spitting flames”
I am currently seated nearly 32,000 feet up in the sky on NWA Flight 3687 to Minneapolis/St. Paul. It is nearly 7.00 AM on the morning of Wednesday, June 8… I am bleary eyed from lack of adequate sleep and my throat is sore from uncontrolled screaming less than 12 hours ago at Judas Priest’s Angel of Retribution Tour 2005 at Darien Lake PAC… Hmmm, let’s rewind a bit, shall we…
Tick…
Its 5.30 PM on Tuesday, June 7 and I am heading out to Darien Lake together with Nandita, Vaibhav and Amol… The atmosphere during the drive is highly electrifying for me, personally… I am really excited to see these metal gods perform live, being one of my favorite groups from the late 70s-early 80s era… I grew up on healthy servings of hard rock and heavy metal that included cult bands – Uriah Heep, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Black Sabbath – at the forefront of the British metal invasion…
As we travel to the PAC, the in-vehicle music is a Greatest Hits album of JP… Listening to the very first track, Green Manalishi With The Two-Pronged Crown from the Unleashed In The East album brought back minds-eye memories of the young Glenn Tipton and KK Downing in their cheesecloth shirts playing lead to the forceful vocals of Rob Halford… Bright images flashing by (like windshields before a fly?) in my mind of the Living After Midnight Tour circa 1982-83 that I watched as a fresh teenager … Without the DVD media those days, my metal-oriented friends and I relied on the relatively cruder VHS format with no THX Surround sound to boot… Not that the absence of either made watching Sentinel or Freewheel Burning any less enjoyable…
Tick…
We arrive at Darien Lake PAC at 6.30 PM… The place is overflowing… Descriptively, “1000s of cars and a million guitars – screaming with power in the air; we found the place where the decibels race – this army of rock will be there – to ram it down, ram it down, straight to the heart of the soul”… It’s a bright Tuesday evening, temperatures over 80F, people in their summer best (read – shorts, tee and sandals, or the absence thereof) are making a beeline towards the concert entrances… A blinding sun beats down mercilessly as we weave our way amongst the crowded masses to the seating area… We get a good spot ~100 feet from the stage with a clear view… The other usual suspects, the Ramans and Bhaskar Esq. arrive as well and we are ready to get this party started…
Tick…
At 7.30 PM, the show starts with… “Got Ryche?”… In case that didn’t ring a bell, it’s the EMPIRE boys… Queensryche opening for Priest… Fact of life – I was in Atlantic City last weekend and on the drive back to Rochester was listening to a 20th Century Masters Collection of Queensryche… Set me thinking as to where these lads had vanished, like they just toppled off a cliff overnight or something… Their trademark sound is almost deafening as they perform songs from their albums of a decade or two passed… They finally finish up with their old hit track, “Queen of the Reich”… Wow!!! Nandita is almost half converted to the Legion of Rock… And Vaibhav has just learnt two relatively important facts of Metal-land – Firstly, Queensryche and Anthrax are two distinct and separate bands and secondly, the former did not (repeat-did-not-for-added-emphasis) release Attack of The Killer Bees…
Tick…
A small break after Queensryche and at last… Its 9.00 PM… JP gets on stage and opens with the hauntingly familiar Hellion followed by Electric Eye, both from the Screaming For Vengeance albums… It’s great to listen to the all too familiar riffs again… Here comes the metal meltdown, run for your lives; Can’t stop the metal meltdown, no one survives… Singer/front man Halford effortlessly proves he can still hit the highest of the high notes at 50+ years… JP continues their first set with Breaking The Law, sending the audience wild, followed by songs (I did not recognize) from their new album Angel of Retribution… Ah well, it’s a Tuesday Night and the Priest is Back!!!
One of the other reasons for coming to see JP perform was to counter a nagging thought that these chappies from Birmingham were on the cusp of the too old to rock and roll, too young to die paradigm… Happily, I was proven dead wrong… Listening to performances from their new album as well as some old favorites from years past – Turbo Lover, their adaptation of (Joan Baez’) Diamonds And Rust (bloody brilliant methinks) and not to forget A Touch Of Evil from their Painkiller album – its reassuring to know they still have it man, they just still have it...
Note to self and readers – get on AMZN or equivalent and order a copy Angel of Retribution immediately!!! The album is way-too-cool if you don’t mind listening to some old fashioned anvil-forged metal… The reviews were spot on as well… And yes, I also have photographic proof that Nandita was actually head-banging to Living After Midnight… Heh, heh, heh… Fool, fool… Look for the answer… Fool fool, you’ve got to bleed for the dancer…
Tick…
Its 10.00 PM and the second set starts… Staccato drumming courtesy Scott Travis and the backing bass of Ian Hill continues to accompany Tipton and Downing on their searing guitar work… These 50-something rockers were just Hell Bent For Leather… Tracks included Hell Rider and Rock You All Around The World… Somewhere during this state of Monotheic Suspended Nirvana, my throat dries up completely here due to “smoking” and absence of any liquid intake to moisten it (the throat, I mean)…
I lost track of time singing along and listening to the guitar outtakes on Exciter (from the album Stained Class) and Victim Of Changes (from the album Sad Wings of Destiny, their second album after Rocka Rolla)… Undeterred, we continue… Halford starts getting the crowd to sing along to You’ve Got Another Thing Coming and…
Tick…
Lights out at 11.00 PM… What an inspiring performance… We drive back and reach Rochester a little after midnight…
Tick…
Well, next up is a complete shift in genres… June 18 features An Evening With The Dave Brubeck Quartet, a headliner jazz performance at the Eastman Theater, Rochester… For those unfamiliar, Mr. Brubeck is an all-of-85-years-old ambassador of jazz who continues to delight aficionados worldwide with signature works unusual to the genre… Just listen to Take Five and Blue Rondo a la Turk and you’ll know what I mean… As for me, I now need to quickly make reservations on Ticket Master, once I deplane…
Peace
S
To carve a road for us that slices every curve in sight
We accelerate, no time to hesitate
This load will detonate whoever would contend its right
Born to lead at breakneck speed
With high octane we're spitting flames”
I am currently seated nearly 32,000 feet up in the sky on NWA Flight 3687 to Minneapolis/St. Paul. It is nearly 7.00 AM on the morning of Wednesday, June 8… I am bleary eyed from lack of adequate sleep and my throat is sore from uncontrolled screaming less than 12 hours ago at Judas Priest’s Angel of Retribution Tour 2005 at Darien Lake PAC… Hmmm, let’s rewind a bit, shall we…
Tick…
Its 5.30 PM on Tuesday, June 7 and I am heading out to Darien Lake together with Nandita, Vaibhav and Amol… The atmosphere during the drive is highly electrifying for me, personally… I am really excited to see these metal gods perform live, being one of my favorite groups from the late 70s-early 80s era… I grew up on healthy servings of hard rock and heavy metal that included cult bands – Uriah Heep, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Black Sabbath – at the forefront of the British metal invasion…
As we travel to the PAC, the in-vehicle music is a Greatest Hits album of JP… Listening to the very first track, Green Manalishi With The Two-Pronged Crown from the Unleashed In The East album brought back minds-eye memories of the young Glenn Tipton and KK Downing in their cheesecloth shirts playing lead to the forceful vocals of Rob Halford… Bright images flashing by (like windshields before a fly?) in my mind of the Living After Midnight Tour circa 1982-83 that I watched as a fresh teenager … Without the DVD media those days, my metal-oriented friends and I relied on the relatively cruder VHS format with no THX Surround sound to boot… Not that the absence of either made watching Sentinel or Freewheel Burning any less enjoyable…
Tick…
We arrive at Darien Lake PAC at 6.30 PM… The place is overflowing… Descriptively, “1000s of cars and a million guitars – screaming with power in the air; we found the place where the decibels race – this army of rock will be there – to ram it down, ram it down, straight to the heart of the soul”… It’s a bright Tuesday evening, temperatures over 80F, people in their summer best (read – shorts, tee and sandals, or the absence thereof) are making a beeline towards the concert entrances… A blinding sun beats down mercilessly as we weave our way amongst the crowded masses to the seating area… We get a good spot ~100 feet from the stage with a clear view… The other usual suspects, the Ramans and Bhaskar Esq. arrive as well and we are ready to get this party started…
Tick…
At 7.30 PM, the show starts with… “Got Ryche?”… In case that didn’t ring a bell, it’s the EMPIRE boys… Queensryche opening for Priest… Fact of life – I was in Atlantic City last weekend and on the drive back to Rochester was listening to a 20th Century Masters Collection of Queensryche… Set me thinking as to where these lads had vanished, like they just toppled off a cliff overnight or something… Their trademark sound is almost deafening as they perform songs from their albums of a decade or two passed… They finally finish up with their old hit track, “Queen of the Reich”… Wow!!! Nandita is almost half converted to the Legion of Rock… And Vaibhav has just learnt two relatively important facts of Metal-land – Firstly, Queensryche and Anthrax are two distinct and separate bands and secondly, the former did not (repeat-did-not-for-added-emphasis) release Attack of The Killer Bees…
Tick…
A small break after Queensryche and at last… Its 9.00 PM… JP gets on stage and opens with the hauntingly familiar Hellion followed by Electric Eye, both from the Screaming For Vengeance albums… It’s great to listen to the all too familiar riffs again… Here comes the metal meltdown, run for your lives; Can’t stop the metal meltdown, no one survives… Singer/front man Halford effortlessly proves he can still hit the highest of the high notes at 50+ years… JP continues their first set with Breaking The Law, sending the audience wild, followed by songs (I did not recognize) from their new album Angel of Retribution… Ah well, it’s a Tuesday Night and the Priest is Back!!!
One of the other reasons for coming to see JP perform was to counter a nagging thought that these chappies from Birmingham were on the cusp of the too old to rock and roll, too young to die paradigm… Happily, I was proven dead wrong… Listening to performances from their new album as well as some old favorites from years past – Turbo Lover, their adaptation of (Joan Baez’) Diamonds And Rust (bloody brilliant methinks) and not to forget A Touch Of Evil from their Painkiller album – its reassuring to know they still have it man, they just still have it...
Note to self and readers – get on AMZN or equivalent and order a copy Angel of Retribution immediately!!! The album is way-too-cool if you don’t mind listening to some old fashioned anvil-forged metal… The reviews were spot on as well… And yes, I also have photographic proof that Nandita was actually head-banging to Living After Midnight… Heh, heh, heh… Fool, fool… Look for the answer… Fool fool, you’ve got to bleed for the dancer…
Tick…
Its 10.00 PM and the second set starts… Staccato drumming courtesy Scott Travis and the backing bass of Ian Hill continues to accompany Tipton and Downing on their searing guitar work… These 50-something rockers were just Hell Bent For Leather… Tracks included Hell Rider and Rock You All Around The World… Somewhere during this state of Monotheic Suspended Nirvana, my throat dries up completely here due to “smoking” and absence of any liquid intake to moisten it (the throat, I mean)…
I lost track of time singing along and listening to the guitar outtakes on Exciter (from the album Stained Class) and Victim Of Changes (from the album Sad Wings of Destiny, their second album after Rocka Rolla)… Undeterred, we continue… Halford starts getting the crowd to sing along to You’ve Got Another Thing Coming and…
Tick…
Lights out at 11.00 PM… What an inspiring performance… We drive back and reach Rochester a little after midnight…
Tick…
Well, next up is a complete shift in genres… June 18 features An Evening With The Dave Brubeck Quartet, a headliner jazz performance at the Eastman Theater, Rochester… For those unfamiliar, Mr. Brubeck is an all-of-85-years-old ambassador of jazz who continues to delight aficionados worldwide with signature works unusual to the genre… Just listen to Take Five and Blue Rondo a la Turk and you’ll know what I mean… As for me, I now need to quickly make reservations on Ticket Master, once I deplane…
Peace
S
Sunday, March 20, 2005
One Hundred Days of Marriage a.k.a Matrimonium - Primoris Centum Dies
And that's as much Latin as I needed for the title... As Journey once sang,
“The mist is slowly lifting
The sound of life misplaced your mind
You're sitting, spellbound through out time
I hope that you remember what you find
Singin' more of a lifetime”
And both Nandita and I continue to enjoy the experiential blow-away more than a 100 days later.
In the interval, we’ve managed to squeeze in quite a few things: terrace parties in Chennai (a new high for an acrophobic me) - meeting old friends in Bangalore at the 13th Floor (Standing on Higher Ground, a'la Alan Parsons?) - consular office visits - visa blues - British Air - losing our bags at JFK - jet lagging - her first deep freeze experience in Rochester's sub zero climes - retrieving our bags in Rochester - spending New Years Eve in NYC with our other brethren (met up with Deepak and Lavanya as well as the one and only irrepressible Gudur) - exploring the dives in the Greenwich area - mall ratting and shopping like there’s no tomorrow - watching movies the old-fashioned way (holding hands, lots of popcorn and Coke) - playing the occasional game of scrabble - went Greek (in case you were getting any ideas, we decided to stick just with their cuisine) - skiing at Swain Mountain (I actually discovered and sprained a few muscles below my coccygeal area that I earlier never knew existed) - wine tasting at some 7-8 vineyards in the Cayuga Lake area (a ferpect way to shpend a Shunday, hic!!!) - driving up to an almost deserted Niagara Falls and back (its quite peaceful without the touristy crowd, moi excepted of course) - amongst others.
Anyways I've suddenly got writer's block now and there's a hot breakfast waiting for me... so methinks, I gosta go... You should have seen some of the pics by now... my better half is more diligent than I am in mailing them out...
Here's wishing we both keeping singin' more through our lifetime... and remembering to be digging it while it's happening because it just might be a one shot deal each of those occasions!!!
Peace
S
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
